Spaced Out :: 2014

A totally wonderful article on National Geographic about the recovery of “lost” satellite images of the Earth from the early 1960s when satellite imaging was in its infancy. To quote:

“Earth scientists David Gallaher and Garrett Campbell liberated the data from a National Climatic Data Center archive in North Carolina, uncovering 25 boxes of magnetic tapes and photographic film from three Nimbus weather satellites launched in the 1960s and 1970s.”

The examples in the article are brilliant including the ecological disaster that is the shrinking of the Aral Sea. Total treasure trove for image hunters!! (and thanks to the person who sent me the link!)

Digimap is now supporting the file geodatabase format for downloading Mastermap. Whilst GML is a good standard for data transfer, Digimap’s users by an large use ArcGIS and QGIS and by offering it this way it should make life much easier for using Mastermap.

Note that the file geodatabase has long been touted as the successor to the shapefile, but Esri dragged it’s heels over publishing the api although it now works on Windows, Linux and Mac (32/64bit) so hopefully this will help push things along a little more.

This gvSIG online training course is shortly to run - those wanting to dip their toe in the waters of open source GIS might find it useful.

It’s been a little while since I hoofed over to the SRTM webpage to take a look at what’s going on…. and this time there was some great news. In reverse order and all extremely good:

3. Void-Filled “SRTM Plus” Released (SRTM NASA V3): “SRTM Plus uses SRTM Version 2 (see below) where the radar interferometric method was successful (not void). Most voids are filled with elevation data from the ASTER GDEM2”

2. NASADEM: What’s Next with SRTM: “currently working on a complete reprocessing of the original SRTM radar data in order to produce an improved near-global digital elevation model (DEM) to be called NASADEM.” Due for completion in 2017.

1. U.S. Releases Enhanced Shuttle Land Elevation Data: yes, the full-resolution 30m data is being made available in it’s entirety. Great news!

The drone wars - how cool is this?! Get me a pod racer - NOW!